Andrew Blum: Lots of confusion between “every great new technology was initially resisted” and “every technology that is initially resisted will be great.”

Lots of confusion between “every great new technology was initially resisted” and “every technology that is initially resisted will be great.”

Carl Sagan said it best—they also laughed at Bozo the Clown

Ha. Had not heard that. I’m plagiarizing.

But, doctor: *I* am Bozo!

four out of five doctors recommend Pagliacci for their patients who choose clowns

Fine, now I've got Tony Randall singing "Laugh, Clown, Laugh" in my head for the rest of the day 🙃 www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jci1...

Tony Randall - Laugh Clown Laughwww.youtube.com Tony Randall sings "Laugh, Clown, Laugh" from his first album "Tony Randall."

Thank you for (indirectly) making me aware of the Odd Couple episode "Laugh, Clown Laugh" youtu.be/Um2akXxGRvw?...

"Laugh, Clown, Laugh" - The Odd Coupleyoutu.be Felix performs his classic rendition of the song Laugh, Clown, Laugh on his old army buddy and former USO partner Richard Dawson's variety show. From the episode Laugh, Clown, Laugh season 5 episode 21. Original airdate: February 28, 1975

Gotta love Oscar's "The Aristocrats" joke at the end.

Checked if this was a real quote and it does appear to check out. 👍

It’s a good line but it implicitly assumes Bozo the Clown was not a genius, which seems very debatable

Here is the risky decision that made me a billionaire, and also a hundred thousand other people who did that went broke, got arrested, or both

...and the thousands I exploited or stole from along the way.

Here's how I chose my lottery numbers. If you follow my system you too will be wealthy. If it worked once it'll work again!

Or here’s the risky decision that made me a billionaire and also a hundred other ones I made that would’ve resulted in utter financial ruin if not for my parents

Leaded gasoline was once a great technology.

It was never a great technology. It was a technology that we didn't understand as well as we thought we did.

Sounds like I hit the metaphor rightly.

Wasn't even the only known way to improve the octane rating of gasoline at the time, just a lot cheaper than the other options

No, it was understood very well from the beginning. Especially after the inventor died from lead poisoning.

Every creationist and anti-vaxer argues 1. Galileo had great new ideas that authorities rejected, THEREFORE 2. Every one whose claims are rejected by scientific authorities is a Galileo, THEREFORE 3. I am the new Galileo

They always leave out the "you must also be right" part.

I visited the Creationist Museum in Kentucky in my mid 20s as a joke. This one dumb bitch talked about how "Pastor Dave" wouldn't agree with their hypothesis that Jesus rode dinosaurs like horses 6,000 years ago. They're robots with no thoughts of their own.

The Ark Encounter in Kentucky? That's the big one. There's a separate Creation Museum in Texas run by different people that's even more rinky dink.

Sorry but the guy with the amazing ideas often credited to Galileo is Copernicus.

And the assumption that all extant technologies are inherently superior to their alternatives

"Pay no attention to the tech giveaway to teachers & schools that we will charge for later, once folks are 'hooked' and believe the tech is necessary for their jobs."

I think it will be the consumers who's altered expectations will make it difficult for the workers to do anything other than run AI models to generate what their customers want. It should take a couple years before consumers start finding it odd when workers could use AI but choose not to.

I guess it's possible that consumers will expect other people (customer service reps? corporations?) to use AI. But they will often avoid it themselves. We're constantly looking for off-switches and workarounds. bsky.app/profile/jaso...

One of the toughest problems Microsoft has to solve is that Windows has to serve two very different types of users: business users who don't want this at all, and home users who don't want this at all.

LLMs really are going to become integral though. Take your current automated call system. Consider how effective LLMs are at handling user interaction. Then you have one individual monitor say 10 LLMs to make sure they're doing what they're supposed to. One individual becomes a team of 10.

It’s a variant of the if everyone hates me I must be doing something right rationalization

We are having another Autonomous Transit Pod vs Just Pay A Guy To Drive The Bus "discussion" on twitter today

Fuck you my Using Artificially Intelligent Trebuchets To Launch People Across Long Distances And Catch Them With Giant Butterfly Nets is neither "dangerous" nor "hare-brained."

And then when there are innovations that might actually improve transit, they get misapplied badly so they can't be distinguished from the chaff (I happen to think Microtransit is a great alternative to barely-there hourly bus service, just not a replacement for *real* bus service)

"They laughed at Jesus. They laughed at Galileo. They laughed at Fred the Incompetent Engineer."

Juicero.

“Let’s make everything out of asbestos and use radium skin cream”

If it hinders most and helps few (cough, rich people, cough), then it isn’t really great.

A lot of "logical thinkers" don't understand necessary and sufficient conditions, nor inverses, converses, and contrapositives.

See also: Change is good.

Kind of works with social change as well

Who resisted the wheel??

Ahmed

The lever and inclined plane industry, primarily, but also Big Grease

My neurodivergent brain immediately went "do we have more evidence for the use of levers or wheels first?". It appears we do have evidence of the lever being used earlier than the wheel. interestingly the inclined plane despite being in use even earlier, was not recognized as a machine until later

It's the "they laughed at Einstein" fallacy. Also, they never laughed at Einstein

Also, is that even really true? Actually revolutionary great new technologies are often enough eagerly accepted specifically because they provide an obvious, immediate benefit to people.

Stanley Moon : You're a nutcase! You're a bleedin' nutcase! George Spiggott : They said the same of Jesus Christ, Freud, and Galileo. Stanley Moon : They said it of a lot of nutcases too.

None of these fools remembers 8 tracks

if you were struggling to pull up a ladder with increasingly large stacks of money sitting on each rung, you'd be confused too

People typically ignore new technologies until they are ready, but AI is different. Never before has a technology been forced on the world so quickly. This is a dangerous experiment run by Big Tech, and governments should stop it.

With AI we have not even gone through an 'early adopters' phase to improve the technology, and buy time for policy people to catch up. It's a total shit show really.

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